Worker's fingers crushed in bakery rolling machine

Date:

16 December 2010

Release No:

SCO/210/10

A Perth-based bakery has been fined after a worker was seriously injured when he caught his hand in the rollers of a machine.

The injured person worked as the Confectionery Manager for Tower Bakery and regularly had to clean a dough sheeter - a machine used to roll icing or marzipan. On 23 March 2008, while waiting for some sugar to boil, the injured person decided he had time to clean the dough sheeter, as the rolls were covered in coloured icing from a previous job. In order to clean it, the injured person set the machine so that the rolls were rotating towards him. However before he could complete the job, the sugar finished boiling. But instead of switching the control lever on the dough sheeter to neutral, the injured person switched the rollers into reverse, so that they were rotating away from him.

As the rollers continued to rotate away from the injured person, his hand and the scraper he was using became drawn in the machine. Although no bones were broken, the injured person suffered serious crush injuries to his right hand, including three 5cm puncture wounds to his fingers.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) revealed that Tower Bakery Limited has never carried out a risk assessment for the process of cleaning the dough sheeter. It also revealed that Tower Bakery had never given the injured person any formal training for carrying out this task, and that he had just copied the process he'd seen other employees use. Although power to the dough sheeter could be isolated to allow it to be cleaned, the injured person had not been made aware of this.

Tower Bakery Limited of Shore Road, Perth pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in that it failed to assess the risks to workers when cleaning the dough sheeter machine and failed to give employees sufficient training, supervision, information and instruction for the task of cleaning the dough sheeter. At Perth Sheriff Court yesterday (14 December) the company was fined £4000.

After the case, HSE Inspector Rachel Doyle, said:

"Tower Bakery had left the injured person to his own devices when cleaning the dough sheeter. A simple risk assessment would have shown that there was an obvious risk whilst the rollers were in operation, and allowed action to be taken to prevent access.

"Tower Bakery had never given the injured person any training in operating and cleaning the dough sheeter, even though had been part of his job for the previous six months. Employers must realise that it is unacceptable to not provide training and supervision on an ongoing basis."

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement.
2. In Scotland the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has sole responsibility for the raising of criminal proceedings for breaches of health and safety legislation.

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